Michael Brissenden presents AM Monday to Friday from 8:00am on ABC Local Radio and 7:10am on Radio National. Join Elizabeth Jackson for the Saturday edition at 8am on Local Radio and 7am on Radio National.

Transcript

New security measures introduced in London amidst fears of terrorism

AM - Saturday, 24 May , 2003 08:12:09

Reporter: Michael Dodd

HAMISH ROBERTSON: A range of new security measures is being introduced in Britain following fears that it's well overdue for a massive Al-Qaeda terrorist attack.

Among those measures have been the placing of large concrete blocks around the Houses of Parliament in central London, aimed at trying to prevent suicide truck bombers slamming into the side of the building.

Michael Dodd reports.

MICHAEL DODD: The dramatic upgrading of security around the Houses of Parliament follows a top little meeting between the director of America's Central Intelligence Agency and the head of Britain's internal security at MI5. They exchanged information on the threat from Al-Qaeda gathered by US and British spies. They discussed likely terrorist targets and how to protect them.

The concrete barriers around the Mother of Parliament at Westminster, with its important symbolic values, is the most obvious outcome, along with an increased police presence at other potential targets, such as Heathrow Airport.

Nonetheless, the British Government is insisting the latest actions are not in response to any specific threat. Rather, as Home Office Minister, Bob Ainsworth, insists, it's part of a continuing process to increase security in the UK capital.

BOB AINSWORTH: If there were a specific threat, and if we could give people information that would help them to take action, we would do precisely that. Now, there is no specific threat. The measures that are being taken are work that's being done by the metropolitan police as part of their work of trying to increase the level of security in London.

MICHAEL DODD: And security expert Richard Evans, of the Jane's Terrorism Intelligence Centre, is adamant that the construction of the concrete blockade around the Houses of Parliament is a smart idea.

RICHARD EVANS: Oh, it's undoubtedly a wise precaution, and the measures that we're seeing being put in place in the capital may not be in response to any specific piece of intelligence. But the kind of obstacles you're seeing being wheeled into place around Parliament are pretty standard anti-terrorist measures for defending buildings and other critical infrastructure against vehicle-born improvised explosive devices.

MICHAEL DODD: So just how effective would these concrete blocks around the Houses of Parliament be in stopping a very determine suicide bomber?

RICHARD EVANS: Well, no one anti-terrorist measure alone is necessarily going to do the whole job of stopping a vehicle-born bomb attack.

What the concrete blocks will do is to create what's known as "set-back", which is a gap in between the building itself and the traffic, to try and increase the distance that an explosion has to travel over in order to damage a building.

MICHAEL DODD: Do you regard it as almost inevitable that there'll be a major terrorist attack in Britain?

RICHARD EVANS: Well, the police and security services do seem to regard it as almost inevitable that an attack of this kind will come.

MICHAEL DODD: But despite the sense of inevitability about an Al-Qaeda attack, and despite the range of measures being put in place to combat it, the British Government's trying to limit the amount of fear.

A Spokesman for police at Scotland Yard said the message to the public is "alert, not alarm."